Bats single work   musical theatre   revue/revusical   humour  
Issue Details: First known date: 1958... 1958 Bats
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

Intimate review.

In a Sydney Morning Herald review theatre critic L. B. writes:

'Bats? The five performers certainly were. They variously pretended to be Metro-Goldwyn's lion, the sphinx, a cuckoo cucking more than it cooed, an eaves-dropping palm from the pot plant in the foyer, ballerinas from 'Swan Bog', an elephant with a lost memory, and Noel Coward [played by Ronald Frazer] summing up La Peruse with rhymes like 'lubra' and 'Maroubra' to keep him in character'.

Other sketches included an expose on social climbing, a slapstick tooth-drilling scene and a brawl with a one-armed bandit (Lyle O'Hara), Jill Perryman as both a honky tonk siren and a sophisticate singing the praises of igloo-life in Alaska, and Alton Harvey as both a paranoiac lout from the Deep South and a frightfully pukka Governor Phillips at Sydney Cove in 1788 (2 October 1958, p.7).

Notes

  • As with most of the Phillip Street revues, Bats was a collaborative effort. The Sydney Morning Herald indicates that 'seven of the [company's] usual scribes wrote the lyrics', while the music was written by Dot Mendoza, with additional music by two others (2 October 1958, p.7).

Production Details

  • 1958: Phillip Street Theatre, Sydney, 1 October 1958 - 2 May 1959.

    • Producer/Director William Orr.
    • Cast Lyle O'Hara, Jill Perryman, Alton Harvey, John Bluthal, Ronald Frazer.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Works about this Work

'Bats!' Opens at Phillip Street L. B. , 1958 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 2 October 1958; (p. 7)

— Review of Bats 1958 single work musical theatre
'Bats!' Opens at Phillip Street L. B. , 1958 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 2 October 1958; (p. 7)

— Review of Bats 1958 single work musical theatre

PeriodicalNewspaper Details

Note:
This entry has been sourced from research undertaken by Dr Clay Djubal into Australian-written popular music theatre.
Last amended 18 Sep 2014 13:26:17
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